


In Circles

by lightonthesea (crescenttwins)



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Blood and Injury, Gen, Minor Character Death, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23179453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenttwins/pseuds/lightonthesea
Summary: Fifty people, ten days. At the end, the human survivors get to leave.Hide still hasn't found Kaneki. Three days left.
Relationships: Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise & Nagachika Hideyoshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	In Circles

**Author's Note:**

> An AU that popped up during a word war session, and that I thought was interesting enough to share!

There's something comforting about the cacophony of a panicked heart. It's better than silence, better than the buzz of electricity that traps them in this place. It's not much comfort against the ghouls, admittedly, but few things are, these days.

Hide licks his lips, slides over the edge of the fence to make his way into an alleyway. There's a checkpoint about halfway through, a dull little coin that will net Hide enough points to sleep in a secure location tonight. He pulls up his face mask; they say that ghouls can smell the breath of the living, and he hasn't been in the game long enough to know whether it's true.

He's almost out of the alleyway when he hears it: the sound of feeding. He swallows, keeps his eyes forward as he steps slowly out of the alleyway, sees the ghoul crouched over a body. It's a koukaku type, a blade jutting out beneath the shoulder of a suit jacket and into his victim.

Hide swallows the bile, moves past the scene as fast as he can. There's a tingle in his wrist, and he swallows against the lump in his throat: he's not safe yet, he can't check it yet.

Five streets later, there's a half-built shelter, and it's half a blessing and half a curse. Hide steps into it, watches the roof light up with a ten minute countdown that's bound to attract every hungry ghoul in the area. Sighing, he pulls the sleeve of his coat up.

A bright  **9** blinks at him from his wrist, and Hide exhales.

Nine humans left, from the original fifty.

He tugs his sleeve down, pulls open his bag to take a sip of water and glance at the surroundings.

The ten minutes are up too fast, and Hide steps out of the shelter before it closes in around him like a flytrap; it might be the most merciful way to lose this game, but he has other plans.

It's been long enough that he creeps back the five alleyways, listening for any sign of the koukaku-type ghoul. The area should be clear enough-- the ghouls have long learned that their prey tend to avoid the gore of a recent feeding.

He walks over to the body, checks the body for a pulse. There's one: a fluttering thing. It would be loud if they had enough strength, he thinks, and turns them over.

Female, mid thirties, if Hide had to guess. She's got a locket twisted up in her hair, and trails of tears on her cheeks. Her body is cold, but Hide couldn't say whether it was due to blood loss or shock.

"Sorry," Hide says. He pulls a knife out of his bag, watches her take shuddering breaths, "I'll make it quick."

He leaves when the number on his wrist ticks down to 8, when her body stops shuddering. He untangles the locket from her hair before he leaves, tucks it into her clothes in case the organizers are good on their word and return the remains to her family.

The sun is setting quickly, and Hide can hear the scraping that means the ghouls are becoming more active. He twists into one of the few intact buildings, presses his little coin into a wall and watches it open up into a small shelter. The wall closes behind him when he enters, and he sits and looks at the boxed dinner that they provide for the day's survivors.

It's a tasty enough sandwich, accompanied by the brand of canned coffee that Hide used to buy for Kaneki. He settles into the bed, flicks the number on his wrist. It's relieving, in a way, that none of the bodies he's found have been Kaneki's: the other boy might still be alive, somewhere in this game.

And what a twisted game it is: throwing humans into an arena with the starving criminals of the ghoul world. For an agreement that ghouls will control their binge eaters in exchange for some weak measure of peace. For a reminder that the humans want to negotiate with the more sophisticated ghouls over their crazed counterparts.

Fifty people, ten days. At the end, the human survivors get to leave.

(But Kaneki never came out, the last round, neither alive nor as remains.)

Hide looks out the only window this space offers, pulls back the curtains to look at the moon.

Seven days gone, and he still hasn't found Kaneki. Three days left.

Before he closes the curtains, he catches a gleam of white on a nearby rooftop. Hide's pretty sure it's a ghoul-- he only ever sees it when he is in the shelter. It appeared on the second night, just waiting at the roof. The presence made it difficult to sleep that second night, hair prickling on Hide's neck while he tried to plan for a possible ambush.

No ambush came that next night.

Nor the next.

It appears every night, just after Hide gets into the shelter, and is gone by morning.

Hide's best guess is that it's a different kind of hunter: the kind that wants him to hope, to let him get to day ten before it bites down. It's a frightening amount of intelligence in comparison to the savage feeding that he's seen from the rest of the ghouls in the game.

But Hide has other goals, and other plans: he tucks the new routes he explored today into his mental map of the arena, thinks of routes of escape and contingencies if Kaneki is injured when he finds him. Carefully doesn't look towards his bag where he's tucked away medical supplies and weapons both.

Hide closes the curtains. 

Three days left.


End file.
